Blue Velvet

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Blue Velvet

R

1986

2h 0m

Mystery & Thriller

Drama

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Popcornmeter

91%

Tomatometer

141 Reviews

88%

Popcornmeter

50,000+ Ratings

College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery. They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

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Critics Consensus

If audiences walk away from this subversive, surreal shocker not fully understanding the story, they might also walk away with a deeper perception of the potential of film storytelling.

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Kevin Maher

The Times (UK)

Jan 5

5/5

The performances from Hopper and Rossellini are extraordinary.

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Neil Norman

London Evening Standard

01/22/2025

At the risk of being called a sick son of a bitch, I believe it to be one of the most extraordinarily erotic and mesmerising experiences I have ever had in the cinema. Blue Velvet has the power to unsettle and disturb like nothing else.

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Eleanor Ringel Cater

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

01/22/2025

Lynch pushes audiences into places not everyone wants to go, and Blue Velvet is not a conventional good time at the movies. But it is one of the most brilliant and provocative films of the year.

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Richard Freedman

Newark Star-Ledger

Jan 5

Lynch doesn't seem to have read very much. He's only seen every movie ever made and in Blue Velvet goes far to elevate the art, if those are the words for it, to a level of purely sensual, personal obsession. It's a movie-lover's movie, but not much more.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Jan 1

3/4

Unlike most great movies, this one loses some of its power with each subsequent viewing.

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Megan Fisher

Loud and Clear Reviews

01/24/2025

If you were asked to close your eyes and visualize an image from the cinematic work of David Lynch, there’s a strong possibility the mental picture you conjured is found somewhere in Blue Velvet.

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Andrew

03/16/2025

Film doesn’t get any better. Absolute stunner!

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Bruce F

03/12/2025

Masterpiece of modern cinema!

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Cognac

03/09/2025

Its David Lynch. A lovely story to watch unfold, just dont get hung up on it making sense.

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Ben

03/09/2025

IMO the best place to start with David Lynch’s filmography.

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Francine

03/06/2025

One of my favorite David Lynch films. I was so lovely to watch this on the big screen. I hope our little Regency theater brings more Lynch films for throwback nights. The movie is a great dreamy noir with a fun soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography. Plenty of "ear"-iness. Disturbing and unsettling at times. All in the right ways.

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Timothy S.

@TJSubject Jun 9

David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) operates as a deliberately disorienting mystery, one that resists the viewer’s expectations at nearly every turn. What initially appears to be a conventional small-town crime narrative gradually reveals itself as something far more psychologically intricate and morally ambiguous. The discovery of the severed ear functions as the film’s catalytic object, ye.t the identity and nature of its connection to the perpetrator are persistently misdirected, ensuring that the audience’s assumptions are continuously undermined. Lynch constructs a bifurcated world—idyllic suburban surfaces juxtaposed against a grotesque subterranean reality—thereby interrogating the stability of American normalcy itself. The resolution of the central mystery does not conform to standard procedural logic; rather, it exposes the inadequacy of simplistic causal explanations. For a 1986 production, its formal audacity, tonal volatility, and psychological precision remain exceptional.

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David Lynch

Director

Kyle MacLachlan

Jeffrey Beaumont

Isabella Rossellini

Dorothy Valens

Dennis Hopper

Frank Booth

Laura Dern

Sandy Williams

Hope Lange

Mrs. Williams

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Synopsis

College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery. They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

Director: David Lynch
Producer: Fred C. Caruso
Screenwriter: David Lynch
Distributor: Warner Home Vídeo, MGM/UA Home Entertainment Inc., Paramount Pictures
Production Co: De Laurentiis
Rating: R
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 19, 1986, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 3, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $8.6M
Runtime: 2h 0m
Sound Mix: Dolby, Surround